OUT THE FRONT DOOR

Delta County is located in Michigan’s upper peninsula and has over 37,000 residents. The county seat is the city of Escanaba, with 13,000 residents. The county is also home to the city of Gladstone, with 5,000 residents. Delta County used to have a county-run animal shelter, but budget cuts forced the facility’s closure in August of 2011. A group of residents then incorporated as the Delta Animal Shelter (DAS), a non-profit, and the county leased the shelter building to the new organization. The shelter “accepts all animals, regardless of age, health conditions, or situation.” DAS management quickly realized that the existing shelter building was too small (2000 square feet) and outdated for their needs, and that the building had a mold problem. After trying to work through the options for staying in the building they decided to relocate the shelter, which would give them a chance to find a more adoption-friendly venue. They completed the purchase of a 9-acre plot and construction is underway. Shelter manager Sue Gartland, in an interview with the local Daily Press, described some of the changes that DAS made after taking over: “We now vaccinate. We spay and neuter all the animals. We started micro-chipping all the animals. We test the animals for heartworm . . . .” Gartland told me in a telephone conversation that animal control is provided by law enforcement agents in the county. DAS is the only shelter in the county and receives strays from every jurisdiction in the county, including Escanaba and Gladstone. The shelter accepts owner surrenders from residents, with no conditions. They have a barn cat program for feral cats. In 2013, the shelter reported to the state of Michigan that it took in 1135 animals (scroll down to Delta Animal Shelter in the link). The shelter had a 96% live release rate, and adopted out zero unsterilized animals. In 2012, the first full year that DAS ran the shelter, the live release rate was 92% with an intake of 1121 animals. That was up from a 69% live release rate in 2010, the last full year that the county ran the shelter. Delta County, MI, was originally listed by this blog on August 12, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

Marquette County is located in the upper peninsula of Michigan and has about 67,000 residents. The city of Marquette, with about 21,000 people, is the county seat. The Upper Peninsula Animal Welfare Shelter (UPAWS) is a private non-profit organization located in Marquette County. I was told in an e-mail from a shelter representative that UPAWS provides animal sheltering for the entire county except for the town of Negaunee, which has a veterinary clinic that takes in strays. I was also told that UPAWS takes in owner surrenders. They encourage appointments for surrenders and ask for a small fee, but do not require either an appointment or a fee. UPAWS reports to the Michigan Department of Agriculture shelter statistics database (scroll down in the link). In calendar year 2013 it had an intake of 1545 animals. The live release rate was 97%. The state does not collect information on owner-requested euthanasia. With animals who died or were lost in shelter care included with euthanasias, the live release rate was 96%. The 2013-2014 Annual Report shows a 97% live release rate for the fiscal year. In 2011, UPAWS reported a 97% live release rate under its former name of Marquette County Humane Society. The 2011-2012 Annual Report posted on the UPAWS website recorded an intake of 1936, with 79% adopted, 16% returned to owner, 1% transferred, and 4% euthanized. The euthanasia statistic includes owner-requested euthanasias. The 2012-2013 Annual Report recorded a 98% live release rate. Marquette County, MI, was originally listed by this blog on April 20, 2013, based on its 2011 and 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

The big news this week is that Richard Avanzino is stepping down as president of Maddie’s Fund in June. Avanzino is often called the father of No Kill. Individual No Kill shelters have been around since 1884, but Avanzino started the No Kill communities movement back in the 1970s and 1980s with his innovations at the San Francisco SPCA, which led to the historic Adoption Pact in 1994. He went to Maddie’s Fund in 1999. His retirement will mark the end of an era. The Beagle Freedom Project is getting publicity for its efforts to get dogs used in scientific experiments out of laboratories and into homes, including a bill in Nevada requiring laboratories to put dogs up for adoption instead of killing them. Although the number of dogs used in labs is far smaller today than it used to be, there are still a significant number. Beagles are the most common “purpose-bred” dog used in experiments. Purpose-bred dogs rescued from laboratories are similar to puppy mill dogs in their lack of experience living in a home environment. In transport news, large black dogs are going from Miami, where they are hard to adopt, to Iowa, where large dogs are in great demand. And Front Street in Sacramento is sending dogs by private plane to Idaho. HSUS has a new page on its website that collects the science proving that breed-specific legislation is misguided. The page makes note of the Centers for Disease Control’s recommendation that breed not be considered in formulating dog-bite prevention policy. The CDC has more expertise and credibility than any other organization in the United States on matters of epidemiology, so their conclusion that dog breed is not a relevant factor in dog bites deserves serious attention. The HSUS page also quotes the American Veterinary Medical Association for the proposition that dog bite statistics “do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite,” citing factors such as the failure to correct those statistics for the relative population of each breed. In other BSL news, a bill has been introduced in the Michigan senate to ban BSL. The Tree House Humane Society in Chicago will include a cat cafe with its new facility. It will be the first cat cafe in Chicago. Madrid, the capital of Spain, has reportedly passed a bill making it illegal to kill stray animals in the city. The Chester County SPCA, which serves Chester and Delaware counties in Pennsylvania, says it has saved over 90% of its animals in each of the last four months. The shelter has just received a grant of $305,000 from PetSmart Charities to start a community-cat program that can help 4700 cats over the next 26 months. Maddie’s Fund is presenting a 5-part series of free webcasts, with Q&A sessions, on the Million Cat Challenge. It’s on five Tuesdays, starting April 7 at 9 PM EST. The presenters include Wally Stem from Waco, a city which has been making amazing strides lately. He is a city-management expert who will talk about alternatives to impoundment. Barbara Carr and Kathie Johnson will speak on the crucial topic of managed admission. Scott Trebatoski, who managed the city shelter in Jacksonville as it transitioned to No Kill and is now the shelter director in Tampa, will speak on one of the newest ideas, return-to-field. Kathleen Olsen and Ollie Davidson will speak about how to make big improvements in outcome by knowing your shelter’s capacity and how to manage it. Dr. Cynthia Delany and Kelly Lee will talk about removing barriers to adoption, including less-intrusive matchmaking. The governor of Virginia has signed the bill modifying the state’s definition of “private animal shelter.” Supporters of the new law are hopeful that the change will force PETA to shut down its slaughterhouse “shelter.” The voters in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, approved a measure last November to allow the county to borrow up to $3.79 million to build a new shelter. However, some county officials are now trying to derail the project, arguing that the proposed new shelter is too fancy. Lynchburg, Virginia’s new shelter is open. One of the features is an outdoor cat room which is “similar to a screened-in porch with pillowed benches.” Lynchburg is not far from Spotsylvania. Perhaps the Spotsylvania County officials could tour the new Lynchburg shelter and learn how proper housing is important for disease control and the mental health and ultimate successful placement of shelter animals. We keep hearing that the state of Maine is No Kill, but the trouble is in finding stats. In this interview, the incoming director of a Maine shelter says that shelters in the state do not have to kill animals based on capacity. In fact, they import animals from out of state. He attributes the state’s success to its people, who take good care of their pets, and a tax on pet food that is used to provide low-cost spay-neuter services.

This post looks at how No Kill did in the central part of the United States in 2015. We can break the area down into four regions: Upper Midwest – Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota Lower Midwest – Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa Western Midwest – North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas South Central – Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana The Upper Midwest, consisting of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, has been doing very well at No Kill. All three of these states are destination states for dog transports. We have numerous No Kill communities in this region, many of them with very high save rates. No Kill success seems to correlate with cold temperatures, and we certainly have that in these states. In Minnesota we have Duluth and St. Paul as stand-outs. In Wisconsin, the communities of Brown County, Brookfield, and Dane County are noteworthy. Michigan has over a dozen public shelters serving over 20 communities that have a 90% or better live release rate. Michigan is also one of the small number of states that has a requirement that shelters report their statistics to the state. The state has all the statistics posted online, going back several years. There seems to be a correlation between states collecting shelter statistics and posting them online and how well the states rank at lifesaving. It may be that when shelters know they have to report and that anyone can read their reports at the click of a mouse, they do better. Detroit remains a problem, though. The Lower Midwest states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Iowa have historically had high kill rates, but we are seeing signs of progress. Kansas City Pet Project (KCPP) in Kansas City, Missouri, is proof that communities in this region can do a very good job of saving shelter pets. KCPP is a good example of an increasingly common trend, which is ordinary citizens forming a non-profit to bid on and take over animal control and sheltering. Terre Haute (Indiana), and Ames (Iowa), are additional bright spots in this region. No Kill efforts in Chicago have been ongoing for a long time and the city shelter has been making slow progress. Their main problem at the present time seems to be a high kill rate for pit-bull-type dogs. Ohio has an interesting scheme that could potentially be turned to good advantage for No Kill. State law provides that each county must have an appointed dog warden, who is responsible for dog licensing and control. The potential for this system is that in Ohio we know who is responsible for dog control, so efforts to make each dog warden’s operation No Kill would be easy to coordinate and standardize. The historical distinction in Ohio between dog sheltering and cat sheltering should also make it easier to set up return-to-field programs for community cats. The western area of the Midwest, consisting of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, is kind of a black hole for No Kill, in the sense that we just do not have much data on these states. I would expect the Dakotas to have relatively small stray populations due to their brutal weather. The region is sparsely populated, with all four states together having a human population of only about 6.5 million. The South Central region of the United States, consisting of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana, is a very mixed bag. There is little data available on Oklahoma. In Arkansas, the progressive city of Fayetteville would seem to be a likely venue for No Kill, but the city shelter is not a model. A quick check of their Facebook page showed that they were closed on the MLK holiday, for example. Baton Rouge in Louisiana has been working on No Kill for several years, but is running at only about a 65% save rate. Texas is where the No Kill action is in the South Central region, but Texas, of all the states in the union, probably has the highest highs and the lowest lows. Austin, the progressive capital of the state, has had high save rates for five years now. Austin has a cooperative model for No Kill that is often cited as an example for other cities. Just north of Austin is Williamson County, which has also been No Kill for five years. San Antonio, about an hour’s drive southwest of Austin, has struggled up into the 80% range. Waco has made an impressive turnaround. But the dark side of things in Texas is very dark. There are consistent reports of high numbers of stray dogs in Houston and Dallas. Shelter intake numbers in Houston are mind-boggling, and the Dallas shelter is under intense pressure to make sweeps to take in (and kill) more stray dogs. As far as I can tell, no national organization has rallied to help the Dallas shelter in this crisis by transporting dogs out of the state. In most parts of the United States spay-neuter efforts that started back in the 1970s have resulted in the vast majority of owned pets being sterilized today. Houston and Dallas apparently never got that memo. They need intervention, and they need it badly. Conclusion The Upper Midwest gets a solid B. Without Detroit it would be a B+. The Lower Midwest gets a C. If there were more information about the Lower Midwest it might get a C+. There is not enough information available about the Western Midwest to even guess at a grade. The South Central region gets a D. The few bright spots in Texas, bright as they are, do not outweigh the serious problems in the rest of the region. If it were not for Austin, Williamson County, and San Antonio the South Central region would get an F.

This is the first in a series of posts on the regions of the United States and how each one is doing at No Kill as we begin 2016. These posts are impressionistic to some extent, because we do not have very much hard data on shelter statistics. And there is lots of variation within each region. Even so, there are some things we can say about the different regions of the country. Today’s post is on the Northeast. For analyzing No Kill success, we can break the Northeast down into two regions: New England – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island Mid-Atlantic – New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia New England New England overall is probably the most successful region of the country at No Kill. If the entire United States was like New England we would be very close to being a No Kill nation. New Hampshire is No Kill and has been for a while. The word is that Maine is No Kill and that seems likely to be true, although data for the state is not available. New England, as well as the northeast in general, is a destination region for transports. I don’t know how many animals are transported into the Northeast each year, but my guess would be 20,000 or more. If I were going to find a fault with New England (and, to some extent, with the entire Northeast region), it would be that many of the organizations there could do even better if they were more willing to be creative and transparent. I think this is, in large part, because of the way animal sheltering developed in the Northeast. In the years from 1866 to the end of the Progressive Era around 1920, the United States saw the first wave of formation of humane societies and SPCAs. Since the northeast part of the country was the most settled at that time, a lot of the animal-welfare organizations in that region today trace their roots back into the 1800s and early 1900s. Many of these organizations seemed to be shaped and constrained by the weight of their own history. The mere knowledge that they have been in existence for 100 years or more makes them conservative and unwilling to risk their legacies by breaking with tradition. And one tradition is not being transparent with the public. In a sense you cannot blame them, because there is much downside and not a lot of upside in posting statistics. Another reason they may not be very concerned with posting statistics is that they feel like they are doing quite well and there is no reason for the public to be concerned. There is a whiff of paternalism about some of these legacy organizations. But again, New England is doing extremely well, and if the only problem we have there is a little ossification in the legacy humane societies, we are in good shape. Why does New England do so well? The director of one humane society told me she thinks it is because people in New England have been pushing spay-neuter and owner responsibility for 40 years now, longer than other areas of the country, and they are reaping the rewards of all that work that went before. I think that analysis is probably correct, but I would add that in general people in New England tend to have more education than average and higher household income, which means they are less likely to have to give up a pet. They are also less likely to put up with cruel or incompetent shelter management. The climate and terrain may also play a part, since high shelter save rates seem to correlate with cold weather, snow, and rocky terrain. Mid-Atlantic The Mid-Atlantic region is a really mixed bag for No Kill, with many successful cities and counties and many that are not doing so well. Over all I would rate these states as better than average, but there is a lot of room for improvement. Some rural areas of New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and some parts of New Jersey, present big problems. New York City, the District of Columbia, and Baltimore have all reported 80% or better live release rates, although Baltimore’s rate had not been sustained for a year as of the end of 2014. It is worth asking the question why these cities seem to be able to achieve 80%+ but then have trouble getting to 90% or above (although I would not be surprised if DC hit 90% in 2015). One possibility might be that in a large city you get a different population of shelter animals than you have in a small town. Another might be that in a city you will have a wide spectrum of household income and education levels, whereas many of the communities with 90%+ live release rates have a concentration of wealthy and educated residents. Another possibility is simply that with very large intake numbers it may be inefficient for one organization to have to do it all. Two large cities that are excellent examples of sustained live release rates over 90% — Jacksonville and Austin — both have large non-profit partners that pull a substantial percentage of the city shelter’s intake. And they both have organizations that do TNR/RTF for feral cats. One Mid-Atlantic state to watch in 2016 is Delaware. The state took over animal control as of the first of the year, and contracted out animal sheltering to a private organization, the Chester County SPCA. The Chester County SPCA seems to be thoroughly committed to No Kill, and I think it is very possible that the entire state of Delaware may finish 2016 with a live release rate of 90% or better. Conclusion Overall, I would give the Northeast region a B, with New England getting an A- and the Mid-Atlantic getting a C+. The region deserves a great deal of credit for the large numbers of animals it transports in.

Vigo County (population 108,000) is located in Indiana, on the border between Indiana and Illinois. The county seat is Terre Haute, a city of 61,000 people. The Terre Haute Humane Society (THHS) contracts with Vigo County and the city of Terre Haute for animal sheltering for strays, and it also takes in in owner surrenders.  The shelter is part of the Vigo County Animal Coalition, a group of organizations that includes the City of Terre Haute Animal Control, Vigo County Animal Control, and local rescues. THHS is currently fundraising for a new shelter. THHS does not post full statistics on its website, but it does post “incoming,” “saved,” and “euthanasia rate” figures on its home page, currently covering the years 2000 to 2011. These figures show a 90% or above “saved” rate for 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. THHS posts “incoming” and “euthanasia” rates for 2012 and 2013, listing the euthanasia rate as 1.6% for 2012 and 2.8% for 2013. Intake was 2202 for 2012 and 2375 for 2013. Vigo County is counted in the Running Totals as a 90%+ community

In the course of research for my book on animal shelter history, I’ve been checking out how children learn their attitudes toward animals. For well over 100 years now, children’s books have included a genre where animals are presented as thinking and feeling like humans. After movies and television were invented, children started seeing these stories on the screen as well. One of the first of these stories to be widely read was the novel Black Beauty, which told the life story of a horse in the style of an autobiography. Over 2 million copies of Black Beauty were distributed back in the late 1800s by humane educators in the United States who hoped that reading the story would create empathy for animals in children. (Today, the total number of distributed copies of Black Beauty is over 50 million.) Since 1900 there has been a steady stream of kindred stories, including Rin Tin Tin, the Terhune collies, Lassie, Old Yeller, various Disney characters, Stuart Little the mouse, and Charlotte the spider. Many people criticize these stories as anthropomorphizing animals — attributing human characteristics to them that they don’t have. Is this a fair criticism? Have generations of parents been leading their children astray by encouraging them to read and watch stories about animals who think and talk like people? Scientists point out that we do not know if any domestic animal has a “theory of mind” – an ability to recognize that others besides itself have minds like its own. One could argue in rebuttal that theory of mind is not needed to form emotional attachments, and that animals, including people, form social attachments based on emotion, not on reason. Even if your dog were to think of you as a giant robot, it would still love you. And I doubt if dogs and cats go beyond the feeling of love to examine the mental nature of the people in their lives. I doubt if, when they are looking inscrutable, they are wondering if you have a mind like theirs. Several people I’ve interviewed who were involved with animal sheltering back in the 1970s and 1980s noticed a change in the attitude of the public toward their pets during that time. People became more reluctant to bring their pets to a shelter. At the same time, shelter intake began to drop sharply. There may have been several reasons why people changed their attitudes about pets, but one factor could have been children’s stories and movies that created a sense of empathy with animals. The generation that matured in the 1970s was exposed to more “anthropomorphic” stories, in more types of media, than any generation before it. Stuart Little was published in 1945, Charlotte’s Web in 1952, and Old Yeller in 1956. Some of the most popular Disney movies about animals were from that period as well, including Bambi (1942), Lady and the Tramp (1955), the movie version of Old Yeller (1957), and 101 Dalmatians (1961). There were seven Lassie movies between 1943 and 1951, and the Lassie television series started in 1954. So do anthropomorphic stories and movies help children learn to be kind? We don’t know for sure, but it’s very possible. And since children (and adults) love such stories, hopefully the tradition will continue. It may be a very good thing for shelter animals if it does.

The Humane Society of Boulder Valley (HSBV) serves the city and county of Boulder, the consolidated city and county of Broomfield, and the cities of Lafayette and Superior. The HSBV service area has a population of over 350,000 people. HSBV reports its statistics to the Colorado Department of Agriculture each year. In 2012, the shelter reported taking in 9049 animals, including 5548 dogs, 3132 cats, and 369 small mammals, reptiles, and pet birds. The live release rate was 93%. The live release rate is unchanged if animals who died in shelter care are included with euthanasias. The shelter also posts 2012 Asilomar-format statistics on its website for dogs and cats only. These statistics differ slightly from the state statistics for dogs and cats, presumably due to differences in the reporting formats. The Asilomar statistics report an intake of 8545 dogs and cats, including animals surrendered for owner-requested euthanasia. The live release rate for dogs and cats was 93% (91% if owner-requested euthanasias and dogs and cats who died in shelter care are counted with euthanasias). The 2013 statistics posted on the HSBV website show an intake for dogs and cats of 7525, with a 92% live release rate. The live release rate was 89% if owner-requested euthanasia and animals who died or were lost in shelter care are counted in with euthanasias. HSBV is particularly notable for its reclaim rate for dogs. In 2012, the shelter reported to the state that it took in 1040 stray dogs and returned 940 dogs to their owners, for a return-to-owner rate of 90% of stray dogs.  The actual reclaim rate may be somewhat lower because it isn’t clear if reclaims of confiscated dogs are included, but nonetheless the reclaim rate is very high. (A traditional reclaim rate for cats cannot be calculated based on the data submitted to the state because the return-to-owner category for cats includes feral cats returned to their colonies.) Boulder County, Colorado, was originally listed by this blog on December 18, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

I’m working on a post about how communities get to No Kill. I went into the research for this post thinking that there were 4 main ways to get to No Kill — (1) a volunteer group or non-profit works with the existing city or county shelter to increase live releases, (2) a non-profit takes over the city or county shelter by contract with the purpose of increasing live release rates, (3) shelter management or city or county officials decide on their own or as a result of education by local advocates to take steps to reduce killing, or (4) grassroots political action creates enough votes or negative publicity to either force unwilling city or county officials to reform their shelter or elect new officials who are willing to reform the shelter. What I’ve found so far is that lots of the communities I’ve listed got to No Kill by one of the first three methods, but as to the 4th method I’m aware of only one community – Austin – that could be classified as having gotten to No Kill by a political fight. And Austin had one of the best non-profits in the nation, Austin Pets Alive, helping the shelter, so it does not appear to be a case of pure political action making the difference. You might be wondering why I don’t simply call up all the shelters I have listed where I don’t know the “backstory” and ask them how No Kill was accomplished in their community. The reason is that I have well over 100 shelters on my list and, with a surprising number of them, their 90%+ live release rates go way back. For example, in Colorado in 2000 there were 9 municipal shelters that reported a live release rate of 90% or more, and there were a couple dozen more in the United States by 2005. Cold calling all those shelters and trying to find people who could accurately tell me what was going on 10 or 15 years ago would be a challenge. Not to mention that in the case of a political fight, people at the shelter might not be anxious to talk about it. But my readers have a lot of collective knowledge and I’m hoping you can furnish me with some leads. So, readers, help me out here. I would like to identify more communities where local activists fought and won a political battle for No Kill that resulted in No Kill happening. I’m looking for cities or counties where officials were not interested in No Kill and rebuffed attempts to educate them, and local activists forced the officials to change their tune and successfully implement No Kill. Even if a political fight was only part of the solution (as in Austin) I’d still like to hear about it. Any suggestions?

The state of Virginia has posted a statistics summary for 2014 for the public shelters and intake rescues that report to it. With a little modification, these statistics can be used to calculate a live release rate for the state as a whole for the year and make some other conclusions as well. First of all, net intake (intake with intra-state transfers subtracted out) was down for the third year in a row. It was 194,408 in 2014 versus 214,159 in 2013 and 224,145 in 2012. That’s an average shelter intake in 2014 of 23 pets per thousand people (PPTP) for the state, down from 27 PPTP in 2012. The 2014 PPTP number of 23 is right about average for the nation as a whole. Virginia has a large metro area near the District of Columbia with low PPTP, though, so that means that some shelters in more rural areas of the state still have high intake. The live release rate for the year, again leaving intra-shelter transfers out of the calculation, was 71%. This is up from 65% in 2013 and 61% in 2012, so that’s good news. What is not so good is that all or almost all of the reduction can be accounted for by the lower number of animals coming in to the shelter. That means that the main reason the Virginia numbers are improving on average is that fewer animals are coming in, not that more animals are getting out alive. Adoptions have increased only slightly at 88,897 in 2014, 87,836 in 2013, and 85,194 in 2012. Those are adoption-per-thousand-people (APTP) rates of about 11. While a rate of 10 or more APTP is considered high for traditional shelters, No Kill shelters often have substantially higher APTP. The entire state of Colorado, for example, had an APTP of 17 in 2013. The return-to-owner (RTO) rate for Virginia shelters in 2014 was 30% of strays, although that number may be a little overstated because Virginia has a rather large “other” intake category that may include some strays. The breakdown by species is 49% RTO for dogs and 6% for cats. Those rates are better than for traditional shelters. Some No Kill shelters have even higher rates, but Virginia’s RTO numbers are not bad. Why is Virginia lagging behind Colorado, which had an 89% live release rate in 2013 and may well have gone over 90% in 2014? (We won’t know Colorado’s numbers for 2014 until the PACFA reports come out, which usually happens in June.) I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the reasons are differences in climate, terrain, economics, and possibly public attitudes toward animals. Colorado’s climate and terrain are more hostile to free-roaming pets than Virginia’s, which would presumably lead to less reproductive success. Virginia is very much a have and have-not state when it comes to wealth and education levels. Virginia has a lot of wealthy people, but they are concentrated in the District of Columbia metro area. Shelters in rural areas of the state have less money and less access to talent. The same stratification between northern Virginia and the rest of the state exists in education levels, and may affect the value that people place on the lives of dogs and cats. Given the lackluster current performance of many Virginia shelters, what can Virginia do to get to No Kill? First of all, they need to improve cat live releases. In 2014, Virginia shelters killed 43% of the cats they took in. In the old days of pet overpopulation back in the 1970s, spay-neuter for owned pets was an all-hands-on-deck effort, and rightly so. Today, our problems are different, because the great majority of people have already spayed and neutered their owned pets. Today what we need to work on most of all, and what should be the all-hands-on-deck effort for our generation, is TNR/SNR for community cats. Virginia is killing tens of thousands of cats each year – almost twice as many cats as dogs. If Virginia shelters were able to implement the 5 initiatives of the Million Cat Challenge, the number of cats killed could be dramatically slashed. Nothing is easy in animal sheltering, and there are legal and institutional barriers to the new cat paradigms in many places, but this is where the potential for a big payoff lies. Virginia’s live release rate for dogs in 2014 was 81%. Virginia is right on the I-95 and I-81 transport corridors, so I was surprised to see that only 7.5% of dogs who were taken in by reporting shelters during 2014 were transported out of state. Of course it’s better to place animals in the community when possible, but it may be a long wait for change in some rural shelters and transports can save the dogs right now. The Virginia Federation of Humane Societies is working on a program to increase transports. Differences in climate, terrain, wealth, and education occur all over the United States, and they make No Kill much harder to achieve in some areas than others. The great thing about transports and the Million Cat initiatives is that they can work anywhere, even in the have-not areas. You do not need a lot of money or local talent to start using managed admission, capacity control, or transports. SNR can be expensive, but there are more and more grant programs for SNR as the large national organizations see the spectacular results such programs have achieved.

Longmont, Colorado, is a city of 86,000 people located north of Denver in Boulder and Weld counties. The Longmont Humane Society (LHS) serves as the municipal shelter for strays who are taken in by Longmont Animal Control or found within the city limits of several nearby towns, including Frederick (population 9000). LHS split off from the Humane Society of Boulder Valley (HSBV) several years ago. According to a representative of HSBV, Boulder County Animal Control takes strays to Longmont that are picked up in the unincorporated area of the county near Longmont, whereas the rest of the strays in the county go to HSBV. According to the representative, Longmont and HSBV both receive strays from the nearby town of Erie (population 6000). LHS accepts owner surrenders from its service area, but states that it may ask owners to wait if the shelter is full. It charges a small fee for surrenders. It also accepts owner surrenders from outside its service area, including out of state, if space is available. LHS reported a live release rate of 87% in 2011. In December of 2011 the shelter announced the appointment of Liz Smokowski as executive director. Ms. Smokowski has a master’s degree in business administration. The shelter’s 2012 annual report stated that in 2012, Smokowski’s first full year as director, LHS increased its live release rate to 94% and decreased its cost per animal by 10%. The report stated that over 850 active volunteers supplied 60,895 hours of service. LHS also submitted a report on 2012 statistics to the state of Colorado, and this report shows a 94% live release rate as well. The shelter has posted full statistics for 2013 on its website. LHS took in 3536 cats and dogs in 2013, an increase from its intake of 3430 cats and dogs in 2012. Its live release rate improved to 95%. If owner-requested euthanasia and animals who died or were lost in shelter care are counted in with euthanasias, the live release rate is 93%. The 2013 annual report noted that LHS had taken in 238 animals displaced by severe flooding in September of 2013. Longmont, Colorado, was originally listed by this blog on May 4, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

Tompkins County is located in the south central part of New York state just below the Finger Lakes. The population of the county is about 102,000, plus approximately 20,000 non-resident students who attend college in Ithaca, the county seat. The Tompkins County SPCA (TCSPCA) has contracted with the county and with several cities and towns within the county for animal control and sheltering services. The towns include Caroline (population 3300), Danby (3300), Enfield (3500), the city of Ithaca (30,000), the town of Ithaca (20,000), Lansing (11,000), Newfield (5200), and Ulysses (4900). TCSPCA’s animal control does not pick up stray cats unless they are injured or in distress. The shelter accepts owner surrenders from the county but asks owners to make an appointment and may require a wait of “several days.” If it is an emergency situation, the shelter will accept the animal immediately. TCSPCA has had a series of notable directors. The well-known author and activist Nathan Winograd started as director of TCSPCA in mid-2001. He was followed by Abigail Smith, who headed up the shelter until accepting a job as director of the Austin Animal Center in 2011. Smith was replaced at TCSPCA by Jim Bouderau, who took over as shelter director in May of 2011. The shelter has reported a live release rate of 90% or more since the calendar year 2002 report, with one exception. In the transition year of 2011 TCSPCA was just below 90%, with a live release rate for the year of 89.3%. In 2012 the live release rate was back up to 92%, with an intake of 1853 dogs and cats. In 2013 the live release rate was again 92%, with an intake of 1822 dogs and cats. If owner-requested euthanasia and animals who died or were lost in shelter care are included with euthanasias, the live release rate was 91% in 2012 and 90% in 2013. The shelter adopted out 1430 animals in 2013, which is an excellent rate of 14 adoptions per 1000 people. They have taken in 60 dogs from California since last August because they had more demand for dogs than supply. Tompkins County, NY, was originally listed by this blog on May 10, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.